They were to make a morning call on Mademoiselle Soubise in her curiosity-shop, and ask about Ben Halim, the husband of Saidee Ray. Victoria was coming to luncheon, for she had accepted Lady MacGregor's invitation. Her note had been brought in last night, while he and Nevill walked in the garden. Afterwards Lady MacGregor had shown it to them both. The girl wrote an interesting hand, full of individuality, and expressive of decision. Perhaps on her arrival they might have something to tell her.

This hope shot Stephen out of bed, though it was only seven, and breakfast was not until nine. He had a cold bath in the private bathroom, which was one of Nevill's modern improvements in the old house, and by and by went for a walk, thinking to have the gardens to himself. But Nevill was there, cutting flowers and whistling tunefully. It was to him that the jewelled white peacock had screamed a greeting.

"I like cutting the flowers myself," said he. "I don't think they care to have others touch them, any more than a cow likes to be milked by a stranger. Of course they feel the difference! Why, they know when I praise them, and preen themselves. They curl up when they're scolded, or not noticed, just as I do when people aren't nice to me. Every day I send off a box of my best roses to Tlemcen. She allows me to do that."

Lady MacGregor did not appear at breakfast, which was served on a marble loggia; and by half-past nine Stephen and Nevill were out in the wide, tree-shaded streets, where masses of bougainvillaea and clematis boiled over high garden-walls of old plaster, once white, now streaked with gold and rose, and green moss and lichen. After the thunderstorm of the day before, the white dust was laid, and the air was pure with a curious sparkling quality.

They passed the museum in its garden, and turned a corner.

"There's Mademoiselle Soubise's shop," said Nevill.

It was a low white building, and had evidently been a private house at one time. The only change made had been in the shape and size of the windows on the ground-floor; and these were protected by green persiennes, fanned out like awnings, although the house was shaded by magnolia trees. There was no name over the open door, but the word "Antiquites" was painted in large black letters on the house-wall.

Under the green blinds was a glitter of jewels displayed among brocades and a tangle of old lace, or on embossed silver trays; and walking in at the door, out of the shadowy dusk, a blaze of colour leaped to the eyes. Not a soul was there, unless some one hid and spied behind a carved and gilded Tunisian bed or a marqueterie screen from Bagdad. Yet there was a collection to tempt a thief, and apparently no precaution taken against invaders.

Delicate rugs, soft as clouds and tinted like opals, were heaped in piles on the tiled floor; rugs from Ispahan, rugs from Mecca; old rugs from the sacred city of Kairouan, such as are made no more there or anywhere. The walls were hung with Tunisian silks and embroidered stuffs from the homes of Jewish families, where they had served as screens for talismanic words too sacred to be seen by common eyes; and there was drapery of ancient banners, Tyrian-dyed, whose gold or silver fringes had been stained with blood, in battle. From the ceiling were suspended antique lamps, and chandeliers of rare rock crystal, whose prisms gave out rose and violet sparks as they caught the light.

On shelves and inlaid tables were beggars' bowls of strange dark woods, carried across deserts by wandering mendicants of centuries ago, the chains, which had hung from throats long since crumbled into dust, adorned with lucky rings and fetishes to preserve the wearer from evil spirits. There were other bowls, of crystal pure as full-blown bubbles, bowls which would ring at a tap like clear bells of silver. Some of these were guiltless of ornament, some were graven with gold flowers, but all seemed full of lights reflected from tilted, pearl-framed mirrors, and from the swinging prisms of chandeliers.

Chafing-dishes of bronze at which vanished hands had been warmed, stood beside chased brazen ewers made to pour rose-water over henna-stained fingers, after Arab dinners, eaten without knives or forks. In the depths of half-open drawers glimmered precious stones, strangely cut pink diamonds, big square turquoises and emeralds, strings of creamy pearls, and hands of Fatma, a different jewel dangling from each finger-tip.

The floor was encumbered, not only with rugs, but with heaps of priceless tiles, Persian and Moorish, of the best periods and patterns, taken from the walls of Arab palaces now destroyed; huge brass salvers; silver anklets, and chain armour, sabres captured from Crusaders, and old illuminated Korans. It was difficult to move without knocking something down, and one stepped delicately in narrow aisles, to avoid islands of piled, precious objects. Everywhere the eye was drawn to glittering points, or patches of splendid colour; so that at a glance the large, dusky room was like a temple decorated with mosaics. There was nothing that did not suggest the East, city or desert, or mountain village of the Kabyles; and the air was loaded with Eastern perfumes, ambergris and musk that blended with each other, and the scent of the black incense sticks brought by caravan from Tombouctou.

"Why doesn't some one come in and steal?" asked Stephen, in surprise at seeing the place deserted.

"Because there's hardly a thief in Algiers mean enough to steal from Jeanne Soubise, who gives half she has to the poor. And because, if there were one so mean, Haroun el Raschid would soon let her know what was going on," said Nevill. "His latest disguise is that of a parrot, but he may change it for something else at any moment."

Then Stephen saw, suspended among the crystal chandeliers and antique lamps, a brass cage, shaped like a domed palace. In this cage, in a coral ring, sat a grey parrot who regarded the two young men with jewel-eyes that seemed to know all good and evil.

"He yells if any stranger comes into the shop when his mistress is out," Nevill explained. "I am an humble friend of His Majesty's, so he says nothing. I gave him to Mademoiselle Jeanne."

Perhaps their voices had been heard. At all events, there was a light tapping of heels on unseen stairs, and from behind a red-curtained doorway appeared a tall young woman, dressed in black.

She was robust as well as tall, and Stephen thought she looked rather like a handsome Spanish boy; yet she was feminine enough in her outlines. It was the frank and daring expression of her face and great black eyes which gave the look of boyishness. She had thick, straight eyebrows, a large mouth that was beautiful when she smiled, to show perfect teeth between the red lips that had a faint, shadowy line of down above them.

"Ah, Monsieur Nevill Caird!" she exclaimed, in English, with a full voice, and a French accent that was pretty, though not Parisian. She smiled at Stephen, too, without waiting to be introduced. "Monsieur Caird is always kind in bringing his friends to me, and I am always glad to see them."

"I've brought Mr. Knight, not to buy, but to ask a favour," said Nevill.

"To buy, too," Stephen hastened to cut in. "I see things I can't live without. I must own them."

"Well, don't set your heart on anything Mademoiselle Soubise won't sell. She bought everything with the idea of selling it, she admits, but now she's got them here, there are some things she can't make up her mind to part with at any price."

"Oh, only a few tiles—and some Jewish embroideries—and bits of jewellery—and a rug or two or a piece of pottery—and maybe one copy of the Koran, and a beggar's bowl," Jeanne Soubise excused herself, hastily adding more and more to her list of exceptions, as her eyes roved wistfully among her treasures. "Oh, and an amphora just dug up near Timgad, with Roman oil still inside. It's a beauty. Will you come down to the cellar to look at it?"

Nevill thanked her, and reserved the pleasure for another time. Then he inquired what was the latest news from Mademoiselle Josette at Tlemcen; and when he heard that there was nothing new, he told the lady of the curiosity-shop what was the object of the early visit.

"But of course I have heard of Ben Halim, and I have seen him, too," she said; "only it was long ago—maybe ten years. Yes, I could not have been seventeen. It is already long that he went away from Algiers, no one knows where. Now he is said to be dead. Have you not heard of him, Monsieur Nevill? You must have. He lived at Djenan el Hadj; close to the Jardin d'Essai. You know the place well. The new rich Americans, Madame Jewett and her daughter, have it now. There was a scandal about Ben Halim, and then he went away—a scandal that was mysterious, because every one talked about it, yet no one knew what had happened—never surely at least."

"I told you Mademoiselle would be able to give you information!" exclaimed Nevill. "I felt sure the name was familiar, somehow, though I couldn't think how. One hears so many Arab names, and generally there's a 'Ben' or a 'Bou' something or other, if from the South."

"Flan-ben-Flan," laughed Jeanne Soubise. "That means," she explained, turning to Stephen, "So and So, son of So and So. It is strange, a young lady came inquiring about Ben Halim only yesterday afternoon; such a pretty young lady. I was surprised, but she said they had told her in her hotel I knew everything that had ever happened in Algiers. A nice compliment to my age. I am not so old as that! But," she added, with a frank smile, "all the hotels and guides expect commissions when they send people to me. I suppose they thought this pretty girl fair game, and that once in my place she would buy. So she did. She bought a string of amber beads. She liked the gold light in them, and said it seemed as if she might see a vision of something or some one she wanted to find, if she gazed through the beads. Many a good Mussulman has said his prayers with them, if that could bring her luck."

The two young men looked at one another.

"Did she tell you her name?" Stephen asked.

"But yes; she was Mees Ray, and named for the dead Queen Victoria of England, I suppose, though American. And she told me other things. Her sister, she said, married a Captain Ben Halim of the Spahis, and came with him to Algiers, nearly ten years ago. Now she is looking for the sister."

"We've met Miss Ray," said Nevill. "It's on her business we've come. We didn't know she'd already been to you, but we might have guessed some one would send her. She didn't lose much time."

"She wouldn't," said Stephen. "She isn't that kind."

"I knew nothing of the sister," went on Mademoiselle Soubise. "I could hardly believe at first that Ben Halim had an American wife. Then I remembered how these Mohammedan men can hide their women, so no one ever knows. Probably no one ever did know, otherwise gossip would have leaked out. The man may have been jealous of her. You see, I have Arab acquaintances. I go to visit ladies in the harems sometimes, and I hear stories when anything exciting is talked of. You can't think how word flies from one harem to another—like a carrier-pigeon! This could never have been a matter of gossip—though it is true I was young at the time."

"You think, then, he would have shut her up?" asked Nevill. "That's what I feared."

"But of course he would have shut her up—with another wife, perhaps."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Stephen. "The poor child has never thought of that possibility. She says he promised her sister he would never look at any other woman."

"Ah, the promise of an Arab in love! Perhaps she did not know the Arabs—that sister. It is only the men of princely families who take but one wife. And he would not tell her if he had already looked at another woman. He would be sure, no matter how much in love a Christian girl might be, she would not marry a man who already had a wife."

"We might find out that," suggested Stephen.

"It would be difficult," said the Frenchwoman. "I can try, among Arabs I know, but though they like to chat with Europeans, they will not answer questions. They resent that we should ask them, though they are polite. As for you, if you ask men, French or Arab, you will learn nothing. The French would not know. The Arabs, if they did, would not tell. They must not talk of each other's wives, even among themselves, much less to outsiders. You can ask an Arab about anything else in the world, but not his wife. That is the last insult."

"What a country!" Stephen ejaculated.

"I don't know that it has many more faults than others," said Nevill, defending it, "only they're different."

"But about the scandal that drove Ben Halim away?" Stephen ventured on.

"Strange things were whispered at the time, I remember, because Ben Halim was a handsome man and well known. One looked twice at him in his uniform when he went by on a splendid horse. I believe he had been to Paris before the scandal. What he did afterwards no one can say. But I could not tell Mees Ray what I had heard of that scandal any more than I would tell a young girl that almost all Europeans who become harem women are converted to the religion of Islam, and that very likely the sister wasn't Ben Halim's first wife."

"Can you tell us of the scandal, or—would you rather not talk of the subject?" Stephen hesitated.

"Oh, I can tell you, for it would not hurt your feelings. People said Ben Halim flirted too much with his Colonel's beautiful French wife, who died soon afterwards, and her husband killed himself. Ben Halim had not been considered a good officer before. He was too fond of pleasure, and a mad gambler; so at last it was made known to him he had better leave the army of his own accord if he did not wish to go against his will; at least, that was the story."

"Of course!" exclaimed Nevill. "It comes back to me now, though it all happened before I lived in Algiers. Ben Halim sold his house and everything in it to a Frenchman who went bankrupt soon after. It's passed through several hands since. I go occasionally to call on Mrs. Jewett and her daughter."

"It is said they wish you would call oftener, Monsieur Caird."

Nevill turned red. Stephen thought he could understand, and hid a smile. No doubt Nevill was a great "catch" in Algerian society. And he was in love with a teacher of Arab children far away in Tlemcen, a girl "poor as a church mouse," who wouldn't listen to him! It was a quaint world; as quaint in Africa as elsewhere.

"What did you tell Miss Ray?" Nevill hurried to ask.

"That Ben Halim had left Algiers nine years ago, and had never been heard of since. When I saw she did not love his memory, I told her people believed him to be dead; and this rumour might be true, as no news of him has ever come back. But she turned pale, and I was sorry I had been so frank. Yet what would you? Oh, and I thought of one more thing, when she had gone, which I might have mentioned. But perhaps there is nothing in it. All the rest of the day I was busy with many customers, so I was tired at night, otherwise I would have sent a note to her hotel. And this morning since six I have been hurrying to get off boxes and things ordered by some Americans for a ship which sails at noon. But you will tell the young lady when you see her, and that will be better than my writing, because sending a note would make it seem too important. She might build hopes, and it would be a pity if they did explode."

Both men laughed a little at this ending of the Frenchwoman's sentence, but Stephen was more impatient than Nevill to know what was to come next. He grudged the pause, and made her go on.

"It is only that I remember my sister telling me, when she was at home last year for a holiday, about a Kabyle servant girl who waits on her in Tlemcen. The girl is of a great intelligence, and my sister takes an interest in her. Josette teaches her many things, and they talk. Mouni—that is the Kabyle's name—tells of her home life to my sister. One thing she did was to serve a beautiful foreign lady in the house of a rich Arab. She was only a child then, not more than thirteen, for such girls grow up early; but she has always thought about that lady, who was good to her, and very sad. Mouni told Josette she had never seen any one so beautiful, and that her mistress had hair of a natural colour, redder than hair dyed with henna and powdered with gold dust. It was this describing of the hair which brought the story back to my head when Miss Ray had gone, because she has hair like that, and perhaps her sister had it too."

"By Jove, we'll run over to Tlemcen in the car, and see that Kabyle girl," Nevill eagerly proposed, carefully looking at his friend, and not at Jeanne Soubise. But she raised her eyebrows, then drew them together, and her frank manner changed. With that shadow of a frown, and smileless eyes and lips, there was something rather formidable about the handsome young woman.

"Mees Ray may like to manage all her own beesiness," she remarked. And it occurred to Stephen that it would be a propitious moment to choose such curios as he wished to buy. In a few moments Mademoiselle Soubise was her pleasant self again, indicating the best points of the things he admired, and giving him their history.

"There's apparently a conspiracy of silence to keep us from finding out anything about Miss Ray's sister as Ben Halim's wife," he said to Nevill when they had left the curiosity-shop. "Also, what has become of Ben Halim."

"You'll learn that there's always a conspiracy of silence in Africa, where Arabs are concerned," Nevill answered. There was a far-off, fatal look in his eyes as he spoke, those blue eyes which seemed at all times to see something that others could not see. And again the sense of an intangible, illusive, yet very real mystery of the East, which he had felt for a moment before landing, oppressed Stephen, as if he had inhaled too much smoke from the black incense of Tombouctou.



XI

Stephen and Nevill Caird were in the cypress avenue when Victoria Ray drove up in a ramshackle cab, guided by an Arab driver who squinted hideously. She wore a white frock which might have cost a sovereign, and had probably been made at home. Her wide brimmed hat was of cheap straw, wound with a scarf of thin white muslin; but her eyes looked out like blue stars from under its dove-coloured shadow, and a lily was tucked into her belt. To both young men she seemed very beautiful, and radiant as the spring morning.

"You aren't superstitious, engaging a man with a squint," said Nevill.

"Of course not," she laughed. "As if harm could come to me because the poor man's so homely! I engaged him because he was the worst looking, and nobody else seemed to want him."

They escorted her indoors to Lady MacGregor, and Stephen wondered if she would be afraid of the elderly fairy with the face of a child and the manner of an autocrat. But she was not in the least shy; and indeed Stephen could hardly picture the girl as being self-conscious in any circumstances. Lady MacGregor took her in with one look; white hat, red hair, blue eyes, lily at belt, simple frock and all, and—somewhat to Stephen's surprise, because she was to him a new type of old lady—decided to be charmed with Miss Ray.

Victoria's naive admiration of the house and gardens delighted her host and hostess. She could not be too much astonished at its wonders to please them, and, both being thoroughbred, they liked her the better for saying frankly that she was unused to beautiful houses. "You can't think what this is like after school in Potterston and cheap boarding-houses in New York and London," she said, laughing when the others laughed.

Stephen was longing to see her in the lily-garden, which, to his mind, might have been made for her; and after luncheon he asked Lady MacGregor if he and Nevill might show it to Miss Ray.

The garden lay to the east, and as it was shadowed by the house in the afternoon, it would not be too hot.

"Perhaps you won't mind taking her yourself," said the elderly fairy. "Just for a few wee minutes I want Nevill. He is to tell me about accepting or refusing some invitations. I'll send him to you soon."

Stephen was ashamed of the gladness with which he could not help hearing this proposal. He had nothing to say to the girl which he might not say before Nevill, or even before Lady MacGregor, yet he had been feeling cheated because he could not be alone with Victoria, as on the boat.

"Gather Miss Ray as many lilies as she can carry away," were Nevill's parting instructions. And it was exactly what Stephen had wished for. He wanted to give her something beautiful and appropriate, something he could give with his own hands. And he longed to see her holding masses of white lilies to her breast, as she walked all white in the white lily-garden. Now, too, he could tell her what Mademoiselle Soubise had said about the Kabyle girl, Mouni. He was sure Nevill wouldn't grudge his having that pleasure all to himself. Anyway he could not resist the temptation to snatch it.

He began, as soon as they were alone together in the garden, by asking her what she had done, whether she had made progress; and it seemed that she retired from his questions with a vague suggestion of reserve she had not shown on the ship. It was not that she answered unwillingly, but he could not define the difference in her manner, although he felt that a difference existed.

It was as if somebody might have been scolding her for a lack of reserve; yet when he inquired if she had met any one she knew, or made acquaintances, she said no to the first question, and named only Mademoiselle Soubise in reply to the second.

That was Stephen's opportunity, and he began to tell of his call at the curiosity-shop. He expected Victoria to cry out with excitement when he came to Mouni's description of the beautiful lady with "henna-coloured, gold-powdered hair"; but though she flushed and her breath came and went quickly as he talked, somehow the girl did not appear to be enraptured with a new hope, as he had expected.

"My friend Caird proposes that he and I should motor to Tlemcen, which it seems is near the Moroccan border, and interview Mouni," he said. "We may be able to make sure, when we question her, that it was your sister she served; and perhaps we can pick up some clue through what she lets drop, as to where Ben Halim took his wife when he left Algiers—though, of course, there are lots of other ways to find out, if this should prove a false clue."

"You are both more than good," Victoria answered, "but I mustn't let you go so far for me. Perhaps, as you say, I shall be able to find out in other ways, from some one here in Algiers. It does sound as if it might be my sister the maid spoke of to Mademoiselle Soubise. How I should love to hear Mouni talk!—but you must wait, and see what happens, before you think of going on a journey for my sake."

"If only there were some woman to take you, you might go with us," said Stephen, more eagerly than he was aware, and thinking wild thoughts about Lady MacGregor as a chaperon, or perhaps Mademoiselle Soubise—if only she could be persuaded to leave her beloved shop, and wouldn't draw those black brows of hers together as though tabooing a forbidden idea.

"Let's wait—and see," Victoria repeated. And this patience, in the face of such hope, struck Stephen as being strange in her, unlike his conception of the brave, impulsive nature, ready for any adventure if only there were a faint flicker of light at the end. Then, as if she did not wish to talk longer of a possible visit to Tlemcen, Victoria said: "I've something to show you: a picture of my sister."

The white dress was made without a collar, and was wrapped across her breast like a fichu which left the slender white stem of her throat uncovered. Now she drew out from under the muslin folds a thin gold chain, from which dangled a flat, open-faced locket. When she had unfastened a clasp, she handed the trinket to Stephen. "Saidee had the photograph made specially for me, just before she was married," the girl explained, "and I painted it myself. I couldn't trust any one else, because no one knew her colouring. Of course, she was a hundred times more beautiful than this, but it gives you some idea of her, as she looked when I saw her last."

The face in the photograph was small, not much larger than Stephen's thumb-nail, but every feature was distinct, not unlike Victoria's, though more pronounced; and the nose, seen almost in profile, was perfect in its delicate straightness. The lips were fuller than Victoria's, and red as coral. The eyes were brown, with a suggestion of coquetry absent in the younger girl's, and the hair, parted in the middle and worn in a loose, wavy coil, appeared to be of a darker red, less golden, more auburn.

"That's exactly Saidee's colouring," repeated Victoria. "Her lips were the reddest I ever saw, and I used to say diamonds had got caught behind her eyes. Do you wonder I worshipped her—that I just couldn't let her go out of my life forever?"

"No, I don't wonder. She's very lovely," Stephen agreed. The coquetry in the eyes was pathetic to him, knowing the beautiful Saidee's history.

"She was eighteen then. She's twenty-eight now. Saidee twenty-eight! I can hardly realize it. But I'm sure she hasn't changed, unless to grow prettier. I used always to think she would." Victoria took back the portrait, and gazed at it. Stephen was sorry for the child. He thought it more than likely that Saidee had changed for the worse, physically and spiritually, even mentally, if Mademoiselle Soubise were right in her surmises. He was glad she had not said to Victoria what she had said to him, about Saidee having to live the life of other harem women.

"I bought a string of amber beads at that curiosity-shop yesterday," the girl went on, "because there's a light in them like what used to be in Saidee's eyes. Every night, when I've said my prayers and am ready to go to sleep, I see her in that golden silence I told you about, looking towards the west—that is, towards me, too, you know; with the sun setting and streaming right into her eyes, making that jewelled kind of light gleam in them, which comes and goes in those amber beads. When I find her, I shall hold up the beads to her eyes in the sunlight and compare them."

"What is the golden silence like?" asked Stephen. "Do you see more clearly, now that at last you've come to Africa?"

"I couldn't see more clearly than I did before," the girl answered slowly, looking away from him, through the green lace of the trees that veiled the distance. "Yet it's just as mysterious as ever. I can't guess yet what it can be, unless it's in the desert. I just see Saidee, standing on a large, flat expanse which looks white. And she's dressed in white. All round her is a quivering golden haze, wave after wave of it, endless as the sea when you're on a ship. And there's silence—not one sound, except the beating which must be my own heart, or the blood that sings in my ears when I listen for a long time—the kind of singing you hear in a shell. That's all. And the level sun shining in her eyes, and on her hair."

"It is a picture," said Stephen.

"Wherever Say was, there would always be a picture," Victoria said with the unselfish, unashamed pride she had in her sister.

"How I hope Saidee knows I'm near her," she went on, half to herself. "She'd know that I'd come to her as soon as I could—and she may have heard things about me that would tell her I was trying to make money enough for the journey and everything. If I hadn't hoped she might see the magazines and papers, I could never have let my photograph be published. I should have hated that, if it hadn't been for the thought of the portraits coming to her eyes, with my name under them; 'Victoria Ray, who is dancing in such and such a place.' She would know why I was doing it; dancing nearer and nearer to her."

"You darling!" Stephen would have liked to say. But only as he might have spoken caressingly to a lovely child whose sweet soul had won him. She seemed younger than ever to-day, in the big, drooping hat, with the light behind her weaving a gold halo round her hair and the slim white figure, as she talked of Saidee in the golden silence. When she looked up at him, he thought that she was like a girl-saint, painted on a background of gold. He felt very tender over her, very much older than she, and it did not occur to him that he might fall in love with this young creature who had no thought for anything in life except the finding of her sister.

A tiny streak of lily-pollen had made a little yellow stain on the white satin of her cheek, and under her blue eyes were a few faint freckles, golden as the lily-pollen. He had seen them come yesterday, on the ship, in a bright glare of sunlight, and they were not quite gone yet. He had a foolish wish to touch them with his finger, to see if they would rub off, and to brush away the lily-pollen, though it made her skin look pure as pearl.

"You are an inspiration!" was all he said.

"I? But how do you mean?" she asked.

He hardly knew that he had spoken aloud; yet challenged, he tried to explain. "Inspiration to new life and faith in things," he answered almost at random. But hearing the words pronounced by his own voice, made him realize that they were true. This child, of whose existence he had not known a week ago, could give him—perhaps was already giving him—new faith and new interests. He felt thankful for her, somehow, though she did not belong to him, and never would—unless a gleam of sunshine can belong to one on whom it shines. And he would always associate her with the golden sunshine and the magic charm of Algeria.

"I told you I'd given you half my star," she said, laughing and blushing a little.

"Which star is it?" he wanted to know. "When I don't see you any more, I can look up and hitch my thought-wagon to Mars or Venus."

"Oh, it's even grander than any planet you can see, with your real eyes. But you can look at the evening star if you like. It's so thrilling in the sunset sky, I sometimes call it my star."

"All right," said Stephen, with his elder-brother air. "And when I look I'll think of you."

"You can think of me as being with Saidee at last."

"You have the strongest presentiment that you'll find her without difficulty."

"When I say 'presentiment,' I mean creating a thing I want, making a picture of it happening, so it has to happen by and by, as God made pictures of this world, and all the worlds, and they came true."

"By Jove, I wish I could go to school to you!" Stephen said this laughing; but he meant every word. She had just given him two new ideas. He wondered if he could do anything with them. Yet no; his life was cut out on a certain plan. It must now follow that plan.

"If you should have any trouble—not that you will—but just 'if,' you know," he went on, "and if I could help you, I want you to remember this, wherever you are and whatever the trouble may be; there's nothing I wouldn't do for you—nothing. There's no distance I wouldn't travel."

"Why, you're the kindest man I ever met!" Victoria exclaimed, gratefully. "And I think you must be one of the best."

"Good heavens, what a character to live up to!" laughed Stephen. Nevertheless he suddenly lost his sense of exaltation, and felt sad and tired, thinking of life with Margot, and how difficult it would be not to degenerate in her society.

"Yes. It's a good character. And I'll promise to let you know, if I'm in any trouble and need help. If I can't write, I'll call, as I said yesterday."

"Good. I shall hear you over the wireless telephone." They both laughed; and Nevill Caird, coming out of the house was pleased that Stephen should be happy.

It had occurred to him while helping his aunt with the invitations, that something of interest to Miss Ray might be learned at the Governor's house. He knew the Governor more or less, in a social way. Now he asked Victoria if she would like him to make inquiries about Ben Halim's past as a Spahi?

"I've already been to the Governor," replied Victoria. "I got a letter to him from the American Consul, and had a little audience with him—is that what I ought to call it?—this morning. He was kind, but could tell me nothing I didn't know—any way, he would tell nothing more. He wasn't in Algiers when Saidee came. It was in the day of his predecessor."

Nevill admired her promptness and energy, and said so. He shared Stephen's chivalrous wish to do something for the girl, so alone, so courageous, working against difficulties she had not begun to understand. He was sorry that he had had no hand in helping Victoria to see the most important Frenchman in Algiers, a man of generous sympathy for Arabs; but as he had been forestalled, he hastened to think of something else which he might do. He knew the house Ben Halim had owned in Algiers, the place which must have been her sister's home. The people who lived there now were acquaintances of his. Would she like to see Djenan el Hadj?

The suggestion pleased her so much that Stephen found himself envying Nevill her gratitude. And it was arranged that Mrs. Jewett should be asked to appoint an hour for a visit next day.



XII

While Victoria was still in the lily-garden with her host and his friend, the cab which she had ordered to return came back to fetch her. It was early, and Lady MacGregor had expected her to stop for tea, as most people did stop, who visited Djenan el Djouad for the first time, because every one wished to see the house; and to see the house took hours. But the dancing-girl, appearing slightly embarrassed as she expressed her regrets, said that she must go; she had to keep an engagement. She did not explain what the engagement was, and as she betrayed constraint in speaking of it, both Stephen and Nevill guessed that she did not wish to explain. They took it for granted that it was something to do with her sister's affairs, something which she considered of importance; otherwise, as she had no friends in Algiers, and Lady MacGregor was putting herself out to be kind, the girl would have been pleased to spend an afternoon with those to whom she could talk freely. No questions could be asked, though, as Lady MacGregor remarked when Victoria had gone (after christening the baby panther), it did seem ridiculous that a child should be allowed to make its own plans and carry them out alone in a place like Algiers, without having any advice from its elders.

"I've been, and expect to go on being, what you might call a perpetual chaperon," said she resignedly; "and chaperoning is so ingrained in my nature that I hate to see a baby running about unprotected, doing what it chooses, as if it were a married woman, not to say a widow. But I suppose it can't be stopped."

"She's been on the stage," said Nevill reassuringly, Miss Ray having already broken this hard fact to the Scotch lady at luncheon.

"I tell you it's a baby! Even John Knox would see that," sharply replied Aunt Caroline.

There was nothing better to do with the rest of the afternoon, Nevill thought, than to take a spin in the motor, which they did, the chauffeur at the wheel, as Nevill confessed himself of too lazy a turn of mind to care for driving his own car. While Stephen waited outside, he called at Djenan el Hadj (an old Arab house at a little distance from the town, buried deep in a beautiful garden), but the ladies were out. Nevill wrote a note on his card, explaining that his aunt would like to bring a friend, whose relatives had once lived in the house; and this done, they had a swift run about the beautiful country in the neighbourhood of Algiers.

It was dinner-time when they returned, and meanwhile an answer had come from Mrs. Jewett. She would be delighted to see any friend of Lady MacGregor's, and hoped Miss Ray might be brought to tea the following afternoon.

"Shall we send a note to her hotel, or shall we stroll down after dinner?" asked Nevill.

"Suppose we stroll down," Stephen decided, trying to appear indifferent, though he was ridiculously pleased at the idea of having a few unexpected words with Victoria.

"Good. We might take a look at the Kasbah afterward," said Nevill. "Night's the time when it's most mysterious, and we shall be close to the old town when we leave Miss Ray's hotel."

Dinner seemed long to Stephen. He could have spared several courses. Nevertheless, though they sat down at eight, it was only nine when they started out. Up on the hill of Mustapha Superieur, all was peaceful under the moonlight; but below, in the streets of French shops and cafes, the light-hearted people of the South were ready to begin enjoying themselves after a day of work. Streams of electric light poured from restaurant windows, and good smells of French cooking filtered out, as doors opened and shut. The native cafes were crowded with dark men smoking chibouques, eating kous-kous, playing dominoes, or sipping absinthe and golden liqueurs which, fortunately not having been invented in the Prophet's time, had not been forbidden by him. Curio shops and bazaars for native jewellery and brasswork were still open, lit up with pink and yellow lamps. The brilliant uniforms of young Spahis and Zouaves made spots of vivid colour among the dark clothes of Europeans, tourists, or employes in commercial houses out for amusement. Sailors of different nations swung along arm in arm, laughing and ogling the handsome Jewesses and painted ladies from the Levant or Marseilles. American girls just arrived on big ships took care of their chaperons and gazed with interest at the passing show, especially at the magnificent Arabs who appeared to float rather than walk, looking neither to right nor left, their white burnouses blowing behind them. The girls stared eagerly, too, at the few veiled and swathed figures of native women who mingled with the crowd, padding timidly with bare feet thrust into slippers. The foreigners mistook them no doubt for Arab ladies, not knowing that ladies never walk; and were but little interested in the old, unveiled women with chocolate-coloured faces, who begged, or tried to sell picture-postcards. The arcaded streets were full of light and laughter, noise of voices, clatter of horses' hoofs, carriage-wheels, and tramcars, bells of bicycles and horns of motors. The scene was as gay as any Paris boulevard, and far more picturesque because of the older, Eastern civilization in the midst of, though never part of, an imported European life—the flitting white and brown figures, like thronging ghosts outnumbering the guests at a banquet.

Stephen and Nevill Caird went up the Rue Bab-el-Oued, leading to the old town, and so came to the Hotel de la Kasbah, where Victoria Ray was staying. It looked more attractive at night, with its blaze of electricity that threw out the Oriental colouring of some crude decorations in the entrance-hall, yet the place appeared less than ever suited to Victoria.

An Arab porter stood at the door, smoking a cigarette. His fingers were stained with henna, and he wore an embroidered jacket which showed grease-spots and untidy creases. It was with the calmest indifference he eyed the Englishmen, as Nevill inquired in French for Miss Ray.

The question whether she were "at home" was conventionally put, for it seemed practically certain that she must be in the hotel. Where could she, who had no other friends than they, and no chaperon, go at night? It was with blank surprise, therefore, that he and Stephen heard the man's answer. Mademoiselle was out.

"I don't believe it," Stephen muttered in English, to Nevill.

The porter understood, and looked sulky. "I tell ze troot," he persisted. "Ze gentlemens no believe, zay ask some ozzer."

They took him at his word, and walked past the Arab into the hotel. A few Frenchmen and Spaniards of inferior type were in the hall, and at the back, near a stairway made of the cheapest marble, was a window labelled "Bureau." Behind this window, in a cagelike room, sat the proprietor at a desk, adding up figures in a large book. He was very fat, and his chins went all the way round his neck in grooves, as if his thick throat might pull out like an accordion. There was something curiously exotic about him, as there is in persons of mixed races; an olive pallor of skin, an oiliness of black hair, and a jetty brightness of eye under heavy lids.

This time it was Stephen who asked for Miss Ray; but he was given the same answer. She had gone out.

"You are sure?"

"Mais, oui, monsieur."

"Has she been gone long?" Stephen persisted, feeling perplexed and irritated, as if something underhand were going on.

"Of that I cannot tell," returned the hotel proprietor, still in guttural French. "She left word she would not be at the dinner."

"Did she say when she would be back?"

"No, monsieur. She did not say."

"Perhaps the American Consul's family took pity on her, and invited her to dine with them," suggested Nevill.

"Yes," Stephen said, relieved. "That's the most likely thing, and would explain her engagement this afternoon."

"We might explore the Kasbah for an hour, and call again, to inquire."

"Let us," returned Stephen. "I should like to know that she's got in all right."

Five minutes later they had left the noisy Twentieth Century behind them, and plunged into the shadowy silence of a thousand years ago.

The change could not have been more sudden and complete if, from a gaily lighted modern street, full of hum and bustle, they had fallen down an oubliette into a dark, deserted fairyland. Just outside was the imported life of Paris, but this old town was Turkish, Arab, Moorish, Jewish and Spanish; and in Algeria old things do not change.

After all, the alley was not deserted, though it was soundless as a tomb save for a dull drumming somewhere behind thick walls. They were in a narrow tunnel, rather than a street, between houses that bent towards each other, their upper stories supported by beams. There was no electric light, scarcely any light at all save a strip of moonshine, fine as a line of silver inlaid in ebony, along the cobbled way which ascended in steps, and a faint glimmer of a lamp here and there in the distance, a lamp small and greenish as the pale spark of a glow-worm. As they went up, treading carefully, forms white as spirits came down the street in heelless babouches that made no more noise than the wings of a bat. These forms loomed vague in the shadow, then took shape as Arab men, whose eyes gleamed under turbans or out from hoods.

Moving aside to let a cloaked figure go by, Stephen brushed against the blank wall of a house, which was cold, sweating dampness like an underground vault. No sun, except a streak at midday, could ever penetrate this tunnel-street.

So they went on from one alley into another, as if lost in a catacomb, or the troubling mazes of a nightmare. Always the walls were blank, save for a deep-set, nail-studded door, or a small window like a square dark hole. Yet in reality, Nevill Caird was not lost. He knew his way very well in the Kasbah, which he never tired of exploring, though he had spent eight winters in Algiers. By and by he guided his friend into a street not so narrow as the others they had climbed, though it was rather like the bed of a mountain torrent, underfoot. Because the moon could pour down a silver flood it was not dark, but the lamps were so dull that the moonlight seemed to put them out.

Here the beating was as loud as a frightened heart. The walls resounded with it, and sent out an echo. More than one nailed door stood open, revealing a long straight passage, with painted walls faintly lighted from above, and a curtain like a shadow, hiding the end. In these passages hung the smoky perfume of incense; and from over tile-topped walls came the fragrance of roses and lemon blossoms, half choked with the melancholy scent of things old, musty and decayed. Beautiful pillars, brought perhaps from ruined Carthage, were set deeply in the whitewashed walls, looking sad and lumpy now that centuries of chalk-coats had thickened their graceful contours. But to compensate for loss of shape, they were dazzling white, marvellous as columns of carved pearl in the moonlight, they and their surrounding walls seeming to send out an eerie, bleached light of their own which struck at the eye. The uneven path ran floods of moonlight; and from tiny windows in the leaning snow-palaces—windows like little golden frames—looked out the faces of women, as if painted on backgrounds of dull yellow, emerald-green, or rose-coloured light.

They were unveiled women, jewelled like idols, white and pink as wax-dolls, their brows drawn in black lines with herkous, their eyes glittering between bluish lines of kohl, their lips poppy-red with the tint of mesouak, their heads bound in sequined nets of silvered gauze, and crowned with tiaras of gold coins. The windows were so small that the women were hidden below their shoulders, but their huge hoop-earrings flashed, and their many necklaces sent out sparks as they nodded, smiling, at the passers; and one who seemed young and beautiful as a wicked fairy, against a purple light, threw a spray of orange blossoms at Stephen's feet.

Then, out of that street of muffled music, open doors, and sequined idols, the two men passed to another where, in small open-air cafes, bright with flaring torches or electric light squatting men smoked, listening to story-tellers; and where, further on, Moorish baths belched out steam mingled with smells of perfume and heated humanity. So, back again to black tunnels, where the blind walls heard secrets they would never tell. The houses had no eyes, and the street doors drew back into shadow.

"Do you wonder now," Nevill asked, "that it's difficult to find out what goes on in an Arab's household?"

"No," said Stephen. "I feel half stifled. It's wonderful, but somehow terrible. Let's get out of this 'Arabian Nights' dream, into light and air, or something will happen to us, some such things as befell the Seven Calendars. We must have been here an hour. It's time to inquire for Miss Ray again. She's sure to have come in by now."

Back they walked into the Twentieth Century. Some of the lights in the hotel had been put out. There was nobody in the hall but the porter, who had smoked his last cigarette, and as no one had given him another, he was trying to sleep in a chair by the door.

Mademoiselle might have come in. He did not know. Yes, he could ask, if there were any one to ask, but the woman who looked after the bedrooms had an evening out. There was only one femme de chambre, but what would you? The high season was over. As for the key of Mademoiselle, very few of the clients ever left their keys in the bureau when they promenaded themselves. It was too much trouble. But certainly, he could knock at the door of Mademoiselle, if the gentlemen insisted, though it was now on the way to eleven o'clock, and it would be a pity to wake the young lady if she were sleeping.

"Knock softly. If she's awake, she'll hear you," Stephen directed. "If she's asleep, she won't."

The porter went lazily upstairs, appearing again in a few minutes to announce that he had obeyed instructions and the lady had not answered. "But," he added, "one would say that an all little light came through the keyhole."

"Brute, to look!" mumbled Stephen. There was, however, nothing more to be done. It was late, and they must take it for granted that Miss Ray had come home and gone to bed.



XIII

That night Stephen dreamed troubled dreams about Victoria. All sorts of strange things were happening behind a locked door, he never quite knew what, though he seemed forever trying to find out. In the morning, before he was dressed, Mahommed brought a letter to his door; only one, on a small tray. It was the first letter he had received since leaving London—he, who had been used to sighing over the pile that heaped up with every new post, and must presently be answered.

He recognized the handwriting at a glance, though he had seen it only once, in a note written to Lady MacGregor. The letter was from Victoria, and was addressed to "Mr. Stephen Knight," in American fashion—a fashion unattractive to English eyes. But because it was Victoria's way, it seemed to Stephen simple and unaffected, like herself. Besides, she was not aware that he had any kind of handle to his name.

"Now I shall know where she was last night," he said to himself, and was about to tear open the envelope, when suddenly the thought that she had touched the paper made him tender in his usage of it. He found a paper-knife and with careful precision cut the envelope along the top. The slight delay whetted his eagerness to read what Victoria had to tell. She had probably heard of the visit which she had missed, and had written this letter before going to bed. It was a sweet thought of the girl's to be so prompt in explaining her absence, guessing that he must have suffered some anxiety.

"DEAR MR. KNIGHT,"

he read, the blood slowly mounting to his face as his eyes travelled from line to line,

"I don't know what you will think of me when I have told you about the thing I am going to do. But whatever you may think, don't think me ungrateful. Indeed, indeed I am not that. I hate to go away without seeing you again, yet I must; and I can't even tell you why, or where I am going—that is the worst. But if you could know why, I'm almost sure you would feel that I am doing the right thing, and the only thing possible. Before all and above all with me, must be my sister's good. Everything else has to be sacrificed to that, even things that I value very, very much.

"Don't imagine though, from what I say, that I'm making a great sacrifice, so far as any danger to myself is concerned. The sacrifice is, to risk being thought unkind, ungrateful, by you, and of losing your friendship. This is the only danger I am running, really; so don't fear for me, and please forgive me if you can. Just at the moment I must seem (as well as ungracious) a little mysterious, not because I want to be mysterious, but because it is forced on me by circumstances. I hate it, and soon I hope I shall be able to be as frank and open with you as I was at first, when I saw how good you were about taking an interest in my sister Saidee. I think, as far as I can see ahead, I may write to you in a fortnight. Then, I shall have news to tell, the best of news, I hope; and I won't need to keep anything back. By that time I may tell you all that has happened, since bidding you and Mr. Caird good-bye, at the door of his beautiful house, and all that will have happened by the time I can begin the letter. How I wish it were now!

"There's just one more word I want to say, that I really can say without doing harm to anybody or to any plan. It's this. I did feel so guilty when you talked about your motoring with Mr. Caird to Tlemcen. It was splendid of you both to be willing to go, and you must have thought me cold and half-hearted about it. But I couldn't tell you what was in my mind, even then. I didn't know what was before me; but there was already a thing which I had to keep from you. It was only a small thing. But now it has grown to be a very big one.

"Good-bye, my dear friend Mr. Knight. I like to call you my friend, and I shall always remember how good you were to me, if, for any reason, we should never see each other again. It is very likely we may not meet, for I don't know how long you are going to stay in Africa, or how long I shall stay, so it may be that you will go back to England soon. I don't suppose I shall go there. When I can leave this country it will be to sail for America with my sister—never without her. But I shall write, as I said, in a fortnight, if all is well—indeed, I shall write whatever happens. I shall be able to give you an address, too, I hope very much, because I should like to hear from you. And I shall pray that you may always be happy.

"I meant this to be quite a short letter, but after all it is a long one! Good-bye again, and give my best remembrances to Lady MacGregor and Mr. Caird, if they are not disgusted with me for the way I am behaving. Gratefully your friend,

"VICTORIA RAY."

There was no room for any anger against the girl in Stephen's heart. He was furious, but not with her. And he did not know with whom to be angry. There was some one—there must be some one—who had persuaded her to take this step in the dark, and this secret person deserved all his anger and more. To persuade a young girl to turn from the only friends she had who could protect her, was a crime. Stephen could imagine no good purpose to be served by mystery, and he could imagine many bad ones. The very thought of the best among them made him physically sick. There was a throat somewhere in the world which his fingers were tingling to choke; and he did not know where, or whose it was. It made his head ache with a rush of beating blood not to know. And realizing suddenly, with a shock like a blow in the face, the violence of his desire to punish some person unknown, he saw how intimate a place the girl had in his heart. The longing to protect her, to save her from harm or treachery, was so intense as to give pain. He felt as if a lasso had been thrown round his body, pressing his lungs, roping his arms to his sides, holding him helpless; and for a moment the sensation was so powerful that he was conscious of a severe effort, as if to break away from the spell of a hypnotist.

It was only for a moment that he stood still, though a thousand thoughts ran through his head, as in a dream—as in the dreams of last night, which had seemed so interminable.

The thing to do was to find out at once what had become of Victoria, whom she had seen, who had enticed her to leave the hotel. It would not take long to find out these things. At most she could not have been gone more than thirteen or fourteen hours.

At first, in his impatience, he forgot Nevill. In two or three minutes he had finished dressing, and was ready to start out alone when the thought of his friend flashed into his mind. He knew that Nevill Caird, acquainted as he was with Algiers, would be able to suggest things that he might not think of unaided. It would be better that they two should set to work together, even though it might mean a delay of a few minutes in the beginning.

He put Victoria's letter in his pocket, meaning to show it to Nevill as the quickest way of explaining what had happened and what he wanted to do; but before he had got to his friend's door, he knew that he could not bear to show the letter. There was nothing in it which Nevill might not see, nothing which Victoria might not have wished him to see. Nevertheless it was now his letter, and he could not have it read by any one.

He knocked at the door, but Nevill did not answer. Then Stephen guessed that his friend must be in the garden. One of the under-gardeners, working near the house, had seen the master, and told the guest where to go. Monsieur Caird was giving medicine to the white peacock, who was not well, and in the stable-yard Nevill was found, in the act of pouring something down the peacock's throat with a spoon.

When he heard what Stephen had to say, he looked very grave.

"I wish Miss Ray hadn't stopped at that hotel," he said.

"Why?" Stephen asked sharply. "You don't think the people there——"

"I don't know what to think. But I have a sort of idea the brutes knew something last night and wouldn't tell."

"They'll have to tell!" exclaimed Stephen.

Nevill did not answer.

"I shall go down at once," Stephen went on.

"Of course I'll go with you," said his friend.

They had forgotten about breakfast. Stopping only to get their hats, they started for the town.



XIV

"Don't begin by accusing the landlord of anything," Nevill advised, at the hotel door. "He's got too much Arab blood in him to stand that. You'd only make him tell you lies. We must seem to know things, and ask questions as if we expected him to confirm our knowledge. That may confuse him if he wants to lie. He won't be sure what ground to take."

The Arab porter was not in his place, but the proprietor sat in his den behind the window. He was drinking a cup of thick, syrupy coffee, and soaking a rusk in it. Stephen thought this a disgusting sight, and could hardly bear to let his eyes rest on the thick rolls of fat that bulged over the man's low collar, all the way round his neck like a yellow ruff. Not trusting himself to speak just then, Stephen let Caird begin the conversation.

The landlord bowed over his coffee and some letters he was reading, but did not trouble to do more than half rise from his chair and sink back again, solidly. These fine gentlemen would never be clients of his, would never be instrumental in sending any one to him. Why should he put himself out?

"We've had a letter from Miss Ray this morning," Nevill announced, after a perfunctory exchange of "good days" in French.

The two young men both looked steadily at the proprietor of the hotel, as Nevill said these words. The fat man did not show any sign of embarrassment, however, unless his expectant gaze became somewhat fixed, in an effort to prevent a blink. If this were so, the change was practically imperceptible. "She had left here before six o'clock last evening, hadn't she?"

"I cannot tell you, Monsieur. It is as I answered yesterday. I do not know the time when she went out."

"You must know what she said when she went."

"On the contrary, Monsieur. The young lady did not speak with me herself. She sent a message."

"And the message was that she was leaving your hotel?"

"First of all, that she had the intention of dining out. With a lady."

Stephen and Nevill looked at each other. With a lady? Could it be possible that Mademoiselle Soubise, interested in the story, had called and taken the girl away?

"What then?" went on Caird. "She let you know eventually that she'd made up her mind to go altogether?"

"The message was that she might come back in some days. But yes, Monsieur, she let me know that for the present she was leaving."

"Yet you didn't tell us this when we called!" exclaimed Stephen. "You let us think she would be back later in the evening."

"Pardon me, Monsieur, if you remember, you asked when Mademoiselle would be back. I replied that I did not know. It was perfectly true. And desolated as I was to inconvenience you, I could not be as frank as my heart prompted. My regrettable reserve was the result of Mademoiselle's expressed wish. She did not desire to have it known that she was leaving the hotel, until she herself chose to inform her friends. As it seems you have had a letter, Monsieur, I can now speak freely. Yesterday evening I could not."

He looked like the last man whose heart would naturally prompt him to frankness, but it seemed impossible to prove, at the moment, that he was lying. It was on the cards that Miss Ray might have requested silence as to her movements.

Stephen bit his lip to keep back an angry reproach, nevertheless, and Caird reflected a moment before answering. Then he said slowly; "Look here: we are both friends of Miss Ray, the only ones she has in Algiers, except of course my aunt, Lady MacGregor, with whom she lunched yesterday. We are afraid she has been imprudently advised by some one, as she is young and inexperienced in travelling. Now, if you will find out from your servants, and also let us know from your own observation, exactly what she did yesterday, after returning from her visit to my aunt—what callers she had, if any; to whose house she went, and so on—we will make it worth your while. Lady MacGregor" (he made great play with his relative's name, as if he wished the landlord to understand that two young men were not the girl's only friends in Algiers) "is very anxious to see Miss Ray. To spare her anxiety, we offer a reward of a thousand francs for reliable information. But we must hear to-day, or to-morrow at latest."

As he evolved this proposal, Nevill and Stephen kept their eyes upon the man's fat face. He looked politely interested, but not excited, though the offer of a thousand francs was large enough to rouse his cupidity, it would seem, if he saw his way to earning it.

He shrugged his shoulders with a discouraged air when Nevill finished.

"I can tell you now, Monsieur, all that I know of Mademoiselle's movements—all that anybody in the hotel knows, I think. No one came to see her, except yourselves. She was out all the morning of yesterday, and did not return here till sometime after the dejeuner. After that, she remained in her room until towards evening. It was the head-waiter who brought me the message of which I have told you, and requested the bill. At what hour the young lady actually went out, I do not know. The porter can probably tell you."

"But her luggage," Stephen cut in quickly. "Where did it go? You can at least tell that?"

"Mademoiselle's luggage is still in the hotel. She asked permission to store it, all but a dressing-bag of some sort, which, I believe she carried with her."

"In a cab?"

"That I do not know. It will be another question for the porter. But were I in the place of Monsieur and his friend, I should have no uneasiness about the young lady. She is certain to have found trustworthy acquaintances, for she appeared to be very sensible."

"We shall be glad if you will let us have a short talk with several of your servants," said Nevill—"the femme de chambre who took care of Miss Ray's room, and the waiter who served her, as well as the porter."

"Certainly, Monsieur. They shall be brought here," the landlord assented. "I will help you by questioning them myself."

"I think we'll do that without your help, thank you," replied Stephen drily.

The fat man looked slightly less agreeable, but touched a bell in the wall by his desk. A boy answered and was sent to command Angele and Ahmed to report at once. Also he was to summon the porter, whether that man had finished his breakfast or not. These orders given, Monsieur Constant looked at the two Englishmen as if to say, "You see! I put my whole staff at your disposition. Does not this prove my good faith? What would you have more?"

Angele was Algerian French, evidently of mixed parentage, like all those in the Hotel de la Kasbah who were not Arabs. She was middle-aged, with a weary, hatchet face, and eyes from which looked a crushed spirit. If Stephen and Nevill could have seen Madame Constant, they would hardly have wondered at that expression.

Ahmed had negro blood in his veins, and tried to smooth out the frizziness of the thick black hair under his fez, with much pomatum, which smelled of cheap bergamot.

These two, with the porter who soon appeared, brushing breadcrumbs from his jacket, stood in front of the bureau window, waiting to learn the purpose for which they had been torn from their various occupations. "It is these gentlemen who have something to ask you. They do not wish me to interfere," announced the master to his servants, with a gesture. He then turned ostentatiously to the sipping of his neglected coffee.

Nevill undertook the cross-questionings, with occasional help from Stephen, but they learned no detail of importance. Angele said that she had been out when the demoiselle Americaine had left the hotel; but that the luggage of Mademoiselle was still in her room. Ahmed had taken a message to Monsieur le Patron, about the bill, and had brought back Mademoiselle's change, when the note was paid. The porter had carried down a large dressing-bag, at what time he could not be sure, but it was long before dark. He had asked if Mademoiselle wished him to call a voiture, but she had said no. She was going out on foot, and would presently return in a carriage. This she did. The porter believed it was an ordinary cab in which Mademoiselle had driven back, but he had not thought much about it, being in a hurry as he took the bag. He was at least certain that Mademoiselle had been alone. She had received no callers while she was in the hotel, and had not been seen speaking to any one: but she had gone out a great deal. Why had he not mentioned in the evening that the young lady had driven away with luggage? For the sufficient reason that Mademoiselle had particularly requested him to say nothing of her movements, should any one come to inquire. It was for the same reason that he had been obliged to deceive Monsieur in the matter of knocking at her door. And as the porter made this answer, he looked far more impudent than he had looked last night, though he was smiling blandly.

How much of this was lies and how much truth? Stephen wondered, when, having given up hope of learning more from landlord or servants, they left the hotel.

Nevill had to confess that he was puzzled. "Their stories hold together well enough," he said, "but if they have anything to hide (mind, I don't say they have) they're the sort to get up their tale beforehand, so as to make it water-tight. We called last night, and that man Constant must have known we'd come again, whether we heard from Miss Ray or whether we didn't—still more, if we didn't. Easy as falling off a log to put the servants up to what he wanted them to say, and prepare them for questions, without giving them tips under our noses."

"If they know anything that fat old swine doesn't want them to give away, we can bribe it out of them," said Stephen, savagely. "Surely these Arabs and half-breeds love money."

"Yes, but there's something else they hold higher, most of them, I will say in their favour—loyalty to their own people. If this affair has to do with Arabs, like as not we might offer all we've got without inducing them to speak—except to tell plausible lies and send us farther along the wrong track. It's a point of pride with these brown faces. Their own above the Roumis, and I'm hanged if I can help respecting them for that, lies and all."

"But why should they lie?" broke out Stephen. "What can it be to them?"

"Nothing, in all probability," Nevill tried to soothe him. "The chances are, they've told us everything they know, in good faith, and that they're just as much in the dark about Miss Ray's movements as we are—without the clue we have, knowing as we do why she came to Algiers. It's mysterious enough anyhow, what's become of her; but it's more likely than not that she kept her own secret. You say she admitted in her letter having heard something which she didn't mention to us when she was at my house; so she must have got a clue, or what she thought was a clue, between the time when we took her from the boat to the Hotel de la Kasbah, and the time when she came to us for lunch."

"It's simply hideous!" Stephen exclaimed. "The only way I can see now is to call in the police. They must find out where that cab came from and where it took Miss Ray. That's the important thing."

"Yes, to get hold of the cabman is the principal thing," said Nevill, without any ring of confidence in his voice. "But till we learn the contrary, we may as well presume she's safe. As for the police, for her sake they must be a last resort."

"Let's go at once and interview somebody. But there's one hope. She may have gone to Tlemcen to see that Kabyle maid of Mademoiselle Soubise, for herself. Perhaps that's why she didn't encourage us to motor there. She's jolly independent."

Nevill's face brightened. "When we've done what we can in Algiers, we might run there ourselves in the car, just as I proposed before," he said eagerly. "If nothing came of it, we wouldn't be wasting time, you know. She warned you not to expect news for a fortnight, so there's no use hanging about here in hopes of a letter or telegram. We can go to Tlemcen and get back inside five days. What do you say?"

What Stephen might have said was, that they could save the journey by telegraphing to Mademoiselle Soubise to ask whether Miss Ray had arrived in Tlemcen. But the brightness in Nevill's eyes and the hopefulness in his voice kept back the prosaic suggestion.

"I say, by all means let's go to Tlemcen," he answered. "To-morrow, after we've found out what we can here about the cab, inquired at the railway stations and so on. Besides, we can at least apply to the police for information about Ben Halim. If we learn he's alive, and where he is living, it may be almost the same as knowing where Miss Ray has gone."



XV

Nothing could be heard of Victoria at any place of departure for ships, nor at the railway stations. Stephen agreed with Nevill that it would not be fair to lay the matter in the hands of the police, lest in some way the girl's mysterious "plan" should be defeated. But he could not put out of his head an insistent idea that the Arab on board the Charles Quex might stand for something in this underhand business. Stephen could not rest until he had found out the name of this man, and what had become of him after arriving at Algiers. As for the name, having appeared on the passenger list, it was easily obtained without expert help. The Arab was a certain Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud; and when Jeanne Soubise was applied to for information concerning him, she was able to learn from her Arab friends that he was a young man of good family, the son of an Agha or desert chief, whose douar lay far south, in the neighbourhood of El-Aghouat. He was respected by the French authorities and esteemed by the Governor of Algiers. Known to be ambitious, he was anxious to stand well with the ruling power, and among the dissipated, sensuous young Arabs of his class and generation, he was looked upon as an example and a shining light. The only fault found in him by his own people was that he inclined to be too modern, too French in his political opinions; and his French friends found no fault with him at all.

It seemed impossible that a person so highly placed would dare risk his future by kidnapping a European girl, and Jeanne Soubise advised Stephen to turn his suspicions in another direction. Still he would not be satisfied, until he had found and engaged a private detective, said to be clever, who had lately seceded from a Paris agency and set up for himself in Algiers. Through him, Stephen hoped to learn how Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud had occupied himself after landing from the Charles Quex; but all he did learn was that the Arab, accompanied by his servant and no one else, had, after calling on the Governor, left Algiers immediately for El-Aghouat. At least, he had taken train for Bogharie, and was known to have affairs of importance to settle between his father the Agha, and the French authorities. Secret inquiries at the Hotel de la Kasbah elicited answers, unvaryingly the same. Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud was not a patron of the house, and had never been seen there. No one answering at all to his description had stopped in, or even called at, the hotel.

Of course, the value of such assurances was negatived by the fact that Arabs hold together against foreigners, and that if Si Maieddine wished to be incognito among his own people, his wish would probably be respected, in spite of bribery. Besides, he was rich enough to offer bribes on his own part. Circumstantial evidence, however, being against the supposition that the man had followed Victoria after landing, Stephen abandoned it for the time, and urged the detective, Adolphe Roslin, to trace the cabman who had driven Miss Ray away from her hotel. Roslin was told nothing about Victoria's private interests, but she was accurately described to him, and he was instructed to begin his search by finding the squint-eyed cab-driver who had brought the girl to lunch at Djenan el Djouad.

Only in the affair of Cassim ben Halim did Stephen and Nevill decide to act openly, Nevill using such influence as he had at the Governor's palace. They both hoped to learn something which in compassion or prudence had been kept from the girl; but they failed, as Victoria had failed. If a scandal had driven the Arab captain of Spahis from the army and from Algiers, the authorities were not ready to unearth it now in order to satisfy the curiosity, legitimate or illegitimate, of two Englishmen.

Captain Cassim ben Halim el Cheik el Arab, had resigned from the army on account of ill-health, rather more than nine years ago, and having sold his house in Algiers had soon after left Algeria to travel abroad. He had never returned, and there was evidence that he had been burned to death in a great fire at Constantinople a year or two later. The few living relatives he had in Algeria believed him to be dead; and a house which Ben Halim had owned not far from Bou Saada, had passed into the hands of his uncle, Caid of a desert-village in the district. As to Ben Halim's marriage with an American girl, nobody knew anything. The present Governor and his staff had come to Algiers after his supposed death; and if Nevill suspected a deliberate reticence behind certain answers to his questions, perhaps he was mistaken. Cassim ben Halim and his affairs could now be of little importance to French officials.

It did not take Roslin an hour to produce the squinting cabman; but the old Arab was able to prove that he had been otherwise engaged than in driving Miss Ray on the evening when she left the Hotel de la Kasbah. His son had been ill, and the father had given up work in order to play nurse. A doctor corroborated this story, and nothing was to be gained in that direction.

Then it was that Nevill almost timidly renewed his suggestion of a visit to Tlemcen. They could find out by telegraphing Josette, he admitted, whether or no Victoria Ray had arrived, but if she were not already in Tlemcen, she might come later, to see Mouni. And even if not, they might find out how to reach Saidee, by catechizing the Kabyle girl. Once they knew the way to Victoria's sister, it was next best to knowing the way to find Victoria herself. This last argument was not to be despised. It impressed Stephen, and he consented at once to "try their luck" at Tlemcen.

Early in the morning of the second day after the coming of Victoria's letter, the two men started in Nevill's yellow car, the merry-eyed chauffeur charmed at the prospect of a journey worth doing. He was tired, he remarked to Stephen, "de tous ces petits voyages d'une demi-heure, comme les tristes promenades des enfants, sans une seule aventure."

They had bidden good-bye to Lady MacGregor, and most of the family animals, overnight, and it was hardly eight o'clock when they left Djenan el Djouad, for the day's journey would be long. A magical light, like the light in a dream, gilded the hills of the Sahel; and beyond lay the vast plain of the Metidja, a golden bowl, heaped to its swelling rim of mountains with the fairest fruits of Algeria.

The car rushed through a world of blossoms, fragrant open country full of flowers, and past towns that did their small utmost to bring France into the land which France had conquered. Boufarik, with its tall monument to a brave French soldier who fought against tremendous odds: Blidah, a walled and fortified mixture of garrison and orange-grove, with a market-place like a scene in the "Arabian Nights": Orleansville, modern and ostentatiously French, built upon ruins of vast antiquity, and hotter than all other towns in the dry cup of the Chelif Valley: Relizane, Perregaux, and finally Oran (famed still for its old Spanish forts), which they reached by moonlight.

Always there were fields embroidered round the edges with wild flowers of blue and gold, and rose. Always there were white, dusty roads, along which other motors sometimes raced, but oftener there were farm-carts, wagons pulled by strings of mules, and horses with horned harness like the harness in Provence or on the Spanish border. There were huge, two-storied diligences, too, drawn by six or eight black mules, crammed under their canvas roofs with white- or brown-robed Arabs, and going very fast.

From Oran they might have gone on the same night, reaching the end of their journey after a few hours' spin, but Nevill explained that haste would be vain. They could not see Mademoiselle Soubise until past nine, so better sleep at Oran, start at dawn, and see something of the road,—a road more picturesque than any they had travelled.

It was not for Stephen to offer objections, though he was in a mood which made him long to push on without stopping, even though there were no motive for haste. He was ashamed of the mood, however, and hardly understood what it meant, since he had come to Algeria in search of peace. When first he landed, and until the day of Victoria's letter, he had been enormously interested in the panorama of the East which passed before his eyes. He had eagerly noticed each detail of colour and strangeness, but now, though the London lethargy was gone, in its place had been born a disturbing restlessness which would not let him look impersonally at life as at a picture.

Questioning himself as he lay awake in the Oran hotel, with windows open to the moonlight, Stephen was forced to admit that the picture was blurred because Victoria had gone out of it. Her figure had been in the foreground when first he had seen the moving panorama, and all the rest had been only a magical frame for her. The charm of her radiant youth, and the romance of the errand which had brought her knocking, when he knocked, at the door of the East, had turned the glamour into glory. Now she had vanished; and as her letter said, it might be that she would never come back. The centre of interest was transferred to the unknown place where she had gone, and Stephen began to see that his impatience to be moving was born of the wish not only to know that she was safe, but to see her again.

He was angry with himself at this discovery, and almost he was angry with Victoria. If he had not her affairs to worry over, Africa would be giving him the rest cure he had expected. He would be calmly enjoying this run through beautiful country, instead of chafing to rush on to the end. Since, in all probability, he could do the girl no good, and certainly she could do him none, he half wished that one or the other had crossed from Marseilles to Algiers on a different ship. What he needed was peace, not any new and feverish personal interest in life. Yes, decidedly he wished that he had never known Victoria Ray.

But the wish did not live long. Suddenly her face, her eyes, came before him in the night. He heard her say that she would give him "half her star," and his heart grew sick with longing.

"I hope to Heaven I'm not going to love that girl," he said aloud to the darkness. If no other woman came into his life, he might be able to get through it well enough with Margot. He could hunt and shoot, and do other things that consoled men for lack of something better. But if—he knew he must not let there be an "if." He must go on thinking of Victoria Ray as a child, a charming little friend whom he wished to help. Any other thought of her would mean ruin.

Before dawn they were called, and started as the sun showed over the horizon.

So they ran into the western country, near to the Morocco border. Dull at first, save for its flooding flowers, soon the way wound among dark mountains, from whose helmeted heads trailed the long plumes of white cascades, and whose feet—like the stone feet of Egyptian kings in ruined temples—were bathed by lakes that glimmered in the depths of gorges.

It was a land of legends and dreams round about Tlemcen, the "Key of the West," city of beautiful mosques. The mountains were honeycombed with onyx mines; and rising out of wide plains were crumbling brown fortresses, haunted by the ghosts of long-dead Arabs who had buried hoards of money in secret hiding-places, and died before they could unearth their treasure. Tombs of kings and princes, and koubbahs of renowned marabouts, Arab saints, gleamed white, or yellow as old gold, under the faded silver of ancient olive trees, in fields that ran red with blood of poppies. Minarets jewelled like peacocks' tails soared above the tops of blossoming chestnuts. On low trees or bushes, guarding the graves of saints, fluttered many-coloured rags, left there by faithful men and women who had prayed at the shrine for health or fortune; and for every foot of ground there was some wild tale of war or love, an echo from days so long ago that history had mingled inextricably with lore of fairies.

Nevill was excited and talkative as they drove into the old town, once the light of western Algeria. They passed in by the gateway of Oran, and through streets that tried to be French, but contrived somehow to be Arab. Nevill told stories of the days when Tlemcen had queened it over the west, and coined her own money; of the marabouts after whom the most famous mosques were named: Sidi-el-Haloui, the confectioner-saint from Seville, who preached to the children and made them sweetmeats; of the lawyer-saint, Sidi Aboul Hassan from Arabia, and others. But he did not speak of Josette Soubise, until suddenly he touched Stephen's arm as they passed the high wall of a garden.

"There, that's where she teaches," he said; and it was not necessary to add a name.

Stephen glanced at him quickly. Nevill looked very young. His eyes no longer seemed to gaze at far-away things which no one else could see. All his interests were centred near at hand.

"Don't you mean to stop?" Stephen asked, surprised that the car went on.

"No; school's begun. We'll have to wait till the noon interval, and even then we shan't be allowed indoors, for a good many of the girls are over twelve, the age for veiling—hadjabah, they call it—when they're shut up, and no man, except near relations, can see their faces. Several of the girls are already engaged. I believe there's one, not fourteen, who's been divorced twice, though she's still interested in dolls. Weird, isn't it? Josette will talk with us in the garden. But we'll have time now to take rooms at the hotel and wash off the dust. To eat something too, if you're hungry."